My littles are like night and day when compared with each other, and I see the future in their eyes whenever I look at them.

The preshus was a regular sized baby when he came out, but we had a tough time breastfeeding which led to him being very slow to grow for about the first 2 years of his life. The peanut, who is almost 2 years younger, is only one year behind his big brother in the hand-me-down clothes department. Also aided by the fact that the peanut is the world’s best eater ever.

When I compare the preshus to a slow-growing tree, I see how much we struggled to feed him for all those years. How much I worried every day that I wasn’t doing right by him by not supplementing his diet with formula. How my mother never. stopped. critiquing the fact that I breastfed him exclusively for six months, and didn’t wean him until he was ready at 11 months. I held on to my convictions, but they were dark days indeed. All I wanted was for my tiny little preshus to grow and be healthy, and he was healthy. So I took it day by day.

Now, at 4 years old, he’s still healthy, very happy, eats like a champ and is perfectly average for height and weight which pleases me to no end. I also am a little proud of the fact that he’s quick to tell me what he likes to eat and when. And even when he doesn’t like what I cook for him and doesn’t want to eat it, I might get frustrated, but I know that’s just him maturing and trying to assert his newly discovered independence. Good for you preshus, I’m so proud of you, but eat your damn dinner already, I spent an hour cooking that. But I digress. Proud of him, my little tree. Let’s leave it at that.

The peanut is my second little tree, still struggling so much to learn how to speak, my heart hurts for him. In my soul, I feel like he just hasn’t made that developmental leap from making sounds, to using words to express himself. That isn’t to say that he isn’t speaking, oh he’s a master of toddlerspeak. Babbling to himself all day and all night (all night, the little night owl), but sadly his words still fail him when he needs to express himself. He’s getting better at learning the vocal rhythm of singing songs, and repeating the words you say to him. Getting him to play repeating word games is no longer the struggle it had been just a few weeks ago. He’ll repeat what you say (more or less) as long as he finds it amusing. I know my little tree will get there, and there will come a time when he’ll spend all his time talking his cute little face off. I suspect that he’ll be the child I get “your child got in trouble today for talking too much in class” notes sent home from school. My mother will get a kick out of that since I was the champion of getting busted in class for talking too much.

Both my little trees have things in life that they struggle with, but this beautiful quote reminds me that trees that are slow to grow, bear the best fruit.